The Evolution of Market Research: Market Research in the New Age

Posted by Larry Praml

As we’ve discussed in part one, The Evolution of Market Research: The Dawning of the Digital Age, and part two, The Evolution of Market Research: Automation Improves Efficiency of this series, the digital age has changed market research data collection dramatically, effectively eliminating the need for interviewers and data entry resources from the process in most quantitative survey research, saving both time and money.

But it is still evolving and the next wave of changes may even be more radical. Consumers leave data trails everywhere they go without answering surveys.

The Evolution of Market Research: Automation Improves Efficiency

Posted by Larry Praml

My first post on the evolution of Market Research to the digital world described online research being a game changer in terms of saving time and money vs “traditional” methods, particularly in the realm of quantitative research. But even as online research became a $3 billion industry, and overtook all other modes of quantitative research within only 10 years after the introduction of web-based surveys, it was really only the beginning of the impact this new technology would eventually have.

The Evolution of Market Research: Dawning of the Digital Age

Posted by Larry Praml

Market research has been around for centuries but has been commercially used to understand how to motivate consumers since early in the 20th century. Some pioneers of the industry, like Daniel Starch and George Gallop, came from academia, while others, like A.C. Nielsen, had backgrounds in other industries.

Driving Competitive Advantage Through Packaging Innovation

Posted by Larry Praml

Part 3: Quantifying the potential impact of your packaging innovation

Changing your packaging is not an insignificant task and carries some risk. Consumers become accustomed to branding and changing how your package looks can actually hurt recognition, or even turn them off to your product. Likewise, functional or material changes can impact the consumer experience. Therefore it is important to test changes to your packaging to ensure that the changes improve recognition and convince consumers to choose your product over the others.

Driving Competitive Advantage Through Packaging Innovation: Part 2

Posted by Larry Praml

Part 2: Making the Case for Packaging Innovation

Functional innovations can add value and help differentiate a product, while branding elements can help a product break through on the shelf and communicate the brand’s equity. Packaging is, after all, an important mode of advertising at the point of purchase.

In this post, we’ll dive in a little deeper on the innovation process and how to identify packaging innovation opportunities. Read more

Driving Competitive Advantage Through Packaging Innovation

Posted by Larry Praml

Part 1: Nice package! Why getting packaging right is so important.

How Market Research Trends Can Help Save the Survey

Posted by Larry Praml

For all the change we talk about happening in the market research industry, a lot of what we do really hasn’t changed much. Qualitative techniques are tried and true, and still have a prominent role in providing insights in both consumer and B2B settings. And while there seems to be a lot of momentum around big data and social listening, the survey is still king.

Market Research Planning: Plan your work, then work your plan

Posted by Larry Praml

Steve Jobs was famous for insisting that Apple relied on instinct and intuition when it brought products to market. But for most of us, relying solely on intuition to make strategic decisions is a dangerous path to go down.

Whether we’re bringing new products to market or in charge of shaping the equity of our brands, we have too much skin in the game to simply trust our intuition. We are either overly optimistic (everyone loves our brand!) or overly pessimistic (we need to kill this idea, no one will like it). Market research gives us perspective that is not tainted by our own biases.